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Fish puns! 🐟 One of the most famous categories of puns on the internet, and that’s what this Punpedia entry is all about. Fish puns overlap a little with the entries on shark puns, beach puns, boat puns and water puns, so feel free to check out those articles for some related wordplay. Fish puns often centre around a few key topics: fins, jaws, names of species, and a few other fish-related topics.

As with all entries on Punpedia, if you’ve got a great pun, you can post it in the comments and one of our curators will add it to this entry. And if you’re looking for visual puns, there’s a collection of visual fish puns towards the end of this entry.

Fish Puns List

Each item in this list of fish puns is either a simple word-swap (e.g. Something → Somefin) or it may be a general rule from which multiple puns can be made. In the case of general rules, the asterisks sign (*) represents one or more letters. Without further ado, here is a big list of fish puns:

Could → Cod: As in “Cod we be friends?” and “Codn’t you hear me?”

*cod*: If a word contains the “cod” sound, or anything vaguely similar we can made a silly fish pun from it: avaCODo, acodemy, abracodabra, acodemia, acodemically, macodamia.

Mull it → Mullet: As in “I’ll mullet over and get back to you.”

Notwithstanding → Notfishstanding : As in “Nothfishtanding their enormity, they are quite streamlined creatures.”

Pacifist → Pacifisht: As in “I am a pacifisht, I don’t believe in war.”

Universe → Tunaverse: As in “The tunaverse is truly an incredible place.”

Hearing → Herring: As in “I’ve beening herring rumours around town…”

Aren’t you vehement → Anchovy-hement: As in “Anchovy-hement about your philosophical position?”

Scale: Fish have scales, and the term scales has many other uses which we can use for fish puns: “These puns are off the scales!” and “We need to scale back.” and “The startup went well initially, but their model didn’t scale.”

Thought → Trout: As in “I trout she loved me.” and “I was deep in trout.”

Tense → Tench: As in “The atmosphere here is really tench.” A “tench” is a freshwater with of the minnow family.

Fine/Fin./Find/Fun → Fin: The word “fin” can be used to replace many small words than have both ‘f’ and ‘n’ like “fun” and “find”. The term “fin” also a French word meaning “finish”, and so is sometimes seen at the end of old films and books.

In* → Fin*: A lovely and shameful pun can be made from any word starting with “in”. Simply replace “in” with “fin”: finformation, finfluence, finvolve, finternational, finvolved, fintroduce, findeed, finvestment, finto, finclude, finteresting, fintellectual, finjury, fintend, finterview, finsurance, finstrument, … Thousand more can be made with the help of a list like this.

*fici* → *fishi*: If a word contains “fici” it can often be replaced with “fishi”. Here are some examples: affishionado, artifishial, benefishial, coeffishient, defishiency, defishit, ineffishient, suffishient, ofishial, profishient, superfishial.

Issue → Fishue: As in “That’s not the fishue here though.” and “I was fishued a sign for parking without a ticket”.

Net: “net” has two senses: “net weight” and “net income” is one sense, and “fish net” is the other sense.

Surgeon → Sturgeon: A “sturgeon” is a very large primitive fish with bony plates on the body. Have a look at the Wikipedia article.

Place → Plaice: “plaice” is a common North Atlantic flatfish.

Door salesperson → Dorsals-person: As in “Door-to-dorsals people are really annoying.” and “Does anyone actually buy things from dorsalsmen?”

Bubbly: “bubbly” has a “this water is bubbly” sense and a “he has a really bubbly personality” sense.

Bollocks → Pollocks: A “pollock” is a fish a greenish-brown fish of the cod family.

Dive: As in “The stock market took a dive today.” and “I tried to dive for the ball to intercept it.” and “This relationship has really taken a dive lately.”

Finland: As in “I head Finland has great fish puns.”

Snappy → Snapper: As in “That was a snapper comeback!” and “Well, there’s no need to get snapper with me.” A snapper is a type of fish.

Girl → Gill: As in “Our little gill grew up so fast!”

Tad → Shad: A “shad” is a common herring-like fish which lives in the sea and breeds in rivers.

Jelly: Can be used as a pun on jellyfish and the slang term for jealous (“Oh you’re just jelly.”) and as a pun on the food item.

Waded: Along with wading through water (as fishers do), this can mean to “read laboriously through a long piece of writing”, so a water pun could be by using it with this definition: “Wading through your last comment was difficult.” It could also just be used in place of “walk”.

See* → Sea*: If a word starts with “see” it can often be replaced with “sea” to create a simple sea pun: seaminly, seads, seaker, seathe, seap, seak, sean, sea (see). See ocean puns entry for more.

Se*cy/Ce*cy → Sea*sea: Most words that start with “se” or “ce” and end with “cy” can be double sea puns: seacresea (secrecy), sealibasea (celibacy).

Chum: This is a name for chopped fish and fish fluids thrown overboard as bait. Examples of regular usage: “My old chums.” and “We became friends while chumming down at the jetty.”

Shirk → Shark: As in “Stop sharking your responsibilities and get the job done.”

Shock → Shark: As in “I was still shivering from shark.”

What are → Water: “Water you doing out so late tonight?” and “Water you doing tomorrow?”

What are we → Watery: As in “Watery going to do?” and “Watery doing today, friends?”

Whatever → Waterever: As in “Waterever, I don’t care.” and “Do waterever you want”.

What her → Water: As in “I know water problem is.” and “Do you know water mother thinks about this?”.

What do → Water: As in “Water you think about this?”

What about → Water boat: As in “Water boat we have tofu curry for dinner tonight?” and “Water boat Ching? Does she want to come to the beach too?”

*pear → *peir: As in “Then all of a sudden she dissapeired!” and “After appeiring to check his watch, he quickly ran away.” and “That is a sharp speir you’ve got there”. People often catch fish from a pier.

Anymore → Nemo: As in “You’re not a kid nemo, Sarah!”

Nemesis→ Nemo-sis: As in “She has always been my arch nemosis.”

Bas* → Bass*: The prefix “bas” can be sometimes be replaced with “bass”, the name of a freshwater fish to make fish puns: bass-ically (basically), bassis (basis), bassket, basstard.

Should* → Shoald*: A “shoal” can refer to a large group of fish, or an area of shallow water, or an underwater sand bank. We can use “shoal” be used to make puns like: shoald (should), shoalder (shoulder), shoaldering.

Show l* → Shoal: This is a subtle one because it involves a word break. Whenever you use the word “show”, and the following word starts with an “L”, then you can replace “show” with “shoal” (a shoal is a large school of fish). For example: “That’s cool! You should shoal Liam.” and “She laughs when we shoal little blue flowers to her.”.

*tual* → *shoal*: A “shoal” can refer to a large group of fish, or an area of shallow water, or an underwater sand bank. If a word contains “tual” it can often be replaced with “shoal” for a cute little pun: actshoal (actual), actshoality (actuality), intellectshoal (intellectual), ritshoal (ritual), spiritshoal, mutshoally, eventshoal, eventshoally, conceptshoal, conceptshoalise, virtshoal, contractshoal, factshoal, factshoally, perpetshoal, textshoal, contextshoal, perceptshoal, punctshoal, instinctshoal, actshoally, habitshoally.

*sole → *shoal: As in “The shoal of my shoe is worn down.” and “Your new gaming conshoal is cool.” and “Yeah, he’s a bit of an asshoal.”

Wish → Fish: As in “I just fish we had more time!” and “If you rub the lamp you get three fishes“.

Fission → Fishin’: As in “Nuclear fishin’ is an exciting new technology.”

God → Cod: As in “There have been hundreds of cods invented throughout history” and “Cod is very cruel in the Old Testament” and “We’re lucky that cod is made up!”.

Pawn/Pwn → Prawn: This pun can be used in the gamer-culture sense: “I got prawned a pro last night”, in the chess sense “He moved his prawn to C4″, and in the pawnbroker sense: “I had to prawn all my stuff to pay for college.”

Sardonic: Sardonic means “grimly mocking or cynical”, and it sounds a bit like “sardine” (the small fish), so you might us this like: “It’s okay if you don’t like seaside puns but there’s no reason to be sardonic“. For extra cheesiness you can also use “sardinonic“, which is even closer to the word “sardine”, but is not a real word.

Certainly → Sardinely: As in “This is sardinely an excellent fish pun.”

Feeling → Eeling: As in “I’ve got a funny eeling about this…” and “I’m eeling bad about the state of this conversation”.

Wrath → Wrasse: As in “You provoked me, and now you shall experience my full wrasse!”

Wrestle → Wrassetle: As in “A friendly wrassetle is always good fun.”

Line: The word “line” has a tonne of different definitions and is involved in many idioms and cliches. It’s also short for “fishing line” amongst people who catch fish.

Opportunity → Opportunaty: As in “We’ve got one opportunaty, let’s make it count” and “Luck is often combination of preparation and opportunaty“.

Opportunity → Op-perch-tuna-ty: As in “I’m glad I got an op-perch-tuna-ty to say this pun.”

*tun* → *tuna*: Generalising the above example, we can make a tuna pun on many words that contain “tun”: opportunaist, attunament, fortuna-teller, fortunately, tunable.

Perch: As in “I was perched on the branch, ready to jump down.” and “I perched the old vase on the edge of the plank.” A perch is a type of freshwater fish.

Dab: As in “Dab the ointment gently on the wound.” and “No, too much! Just a dab.” A dab is a small flatfish found mostly in the North Atlantic.

Thank → Tank: As in “Tanks so much for coming!” (A play on aquariums)

Okay → Hoki: As in “Try a little harder next time, Hoki?” The term “Hoki” refers to a type of hake fish.

Girl* → Gill*: As in “There was a strange gill sitting on the beach today.” and “Where is your gillfriend, today?”

Ill* → Gill*: If a word starts with “ill”, it can be replaced with “gill” to create a pun. Here’s a list of words to get you started: gillustrate (illustrate), gillegal (illegal), gillness (illness), gillusion (you get the idea), gillogical, gilliterate, gilluminate, gilluminati, gillusive.

Hil* → Gill*: If a word starts with “hil”, it can be replaced with “gill” to create a pun. Here’s a list of words to get you started: gill (hill), gillarious (hilarious), gillarity (hilarity), gilltop (hilltop).

Debate → Debait: As in “I don’t want to debait you.” and “We’re just having a friendly debait“.

Bet → Bait: As in “I bait you I’ll beat you in a fish pun battle.”

But → Bait: As in “I’d come along, bait I’ve got an appointment.”

Meant to → Manta: As in “I manta buy her a gift, but I forgot.” and “Is it manta make that sound?”. If you’re feeling brave you might also like to try “manta ray” as a replacement for “meant to say”.

Summon → Salmon: As in “He salmoned a spirit from the underworld.” and “Please salmon the duke, I have an urgent message!”.

Someone → Salmon: As in “Will salmon please help me?” and “Salmon’s at the door”.

Crea* → Cray*: Many words that begin with “crea” can be used to make shoddy crayfish puns. For example: crayture (creature), craytive (creative), crayte (create).

Crayon: The word “crayon” includes “cray” – the short version of “crayfish”, and so can be used as a pun.

Had → Haddock: A beautiful and terrible pun using the name of a North Atlantic bottom-dwelling fish. An example sentence might be: “I’ve haddock enough.”

Had it → Haddock: As in “I’ve just about haddock with your puns!”

Mack → Mackerel: The word “mack” is slang for “to flirt”. To “mack on” someone is to “hit on” them. One could make a very bad pun with the word “mackeral” (a type of fish).

Ra* → Ray*: Many words that start with “ra” can be made into puns with “ray” (short for “sting ray”). For example: rayte (rate), raynge (range), rayse (raise), rayce (race), raydio, raylway, rayn, rayl, raytio, raydiation, raynbow, raycism, raynger. Many more can be made using this list.

*ration → *raytion: If a word ends in “ration” you can almost always make a stingray pun with it. For example: operaytion, administraytion, consideraytion, generaytion, concentraytion, corporaytion, preparaytion, demonstraytion, integraytion, registraytion, separaytion. You’ll find many more examples in this list.

*rag* → *rayg*: If a word contains “rag” it can sometimes be punned on. For example: “This discussion is absolutely outraygeous!”. Other examples are: discourayge, coverayge and beverayge.

Cuddle → Cuttle: As in “Would you like a cuttle?” and “Cuttling you is nice :)”.

It’s cool → School: The collective noun for a group of fish is “school”, as in “a school of fish”. So, replacing “it’s cool” with “school” gives us puns like “School, don’t worry about it” and “Don’t worry, school, she’ll be back soon.”

Coy → Koi: To be “coy” means to be “shy” or to pretend to be shy so as to be seen as cute or attractive. “Koi” are variety of carp fish commonly bred in Japan.

Hate → Hake: As in “I absolutely hake it when it rains at the beach”. Hake are a species of fish.

Rue → Roe: The term “roe” refers to a mass of fish eggs inside the ovaries of a fish or shellfish. “Rue” means to bitterly regret.

Batter: People who eat fish often cover it in a floury semi-liquid which gives it a crisp coating. Batter can also mean “to strike repeatedly with hard blows”. For example: “No more fish puns or I’ll batter you!”

Brilliant → Brill-iant: “Brill” are a common European flatfish. We can use it to make a fish pun of all the different variations of brilliant: brill-iant, brill-iance, brill-iantly.

Hearing → Herring: As in “He is hard of herring.” and “The judge said he will receive a second herring on Tuesday”.

Hell of it → Halibut: As in “Why? Just for the halibut!”. Halibut is a marine flatfish.

Harp* → Carp*: If a word starts with “harp” a fish pun can be made by switching it with “carp”. For example: “Oh will you stop carping on (harping on) about your fishing trip!” and “I think we’ll need to use a carpoon (harpoon)”.

Obs* → Lobs*: If a word begins with “obs” a terrible lobster pun can sometimes be made by switching it with “lobs”, as in observation (lobservation, or even lobstervation), obstruction (lobstruction or even lobsterusction), obscurity (lobscurity), obsolescence (lobseolescence), obsessively (lobsessively).

Fumble/Struggle → Flounder: The word “flounder” can refer to a small, common flatfish found in coastal waters and also, as a verb, to struggling, staggering or clumsily trying to do something. Use “flounder” to replace words like fumble and struggle: “He made a good sea pun at the start, but then floundered for the rest of his speech.”

Go be → Goby: As in “Goby alone for a while – it will help”. A “goby” us a small fish which has a sucker on its underside.

Late → Lake: As in “It’s a bit lake to start now.”

School: Fish swim in “schools“, and there are a few usual definitions of school, plus some slang ones like in “You just got schooled!”

Tune a → Tuna: As in “How does one tuna piano?” and “I was trying to tuna guy at the club.”

Darn → Tarn: As in “Tarn it!” A tarn is a small mountain lake.

Try out → Trout: As in “I can’t wait to trout my new outfit!”

Creak → Creek: As in “These floorboards are creeky.”

Onion → Grunion: As in “Mushroom burger with extra grunion please!” A “grunion” is a small, slender Californian fish known for their unusual spawning behaviour in which they move out of the water onto the beach to bury their eggs.

Barfish: A barfish is another name for the yellow bass: “I’m feeling a little barf-ish reading so many terrible puns.”

Cuddle it → Codlet: A “codlet” is one of a family of family of species of cod-like fish: “That’s so cute! I’d codlet all day!”

Spike → Pike: As in “Someone piked the punch!”

Dang → Tang: As in “Tang nabbit!” A “tang” is a surgeonfish that occurs around reefs and rocky areas where it eats algae.

Catch: As in “Did you catch that?”

Official → Offishial: “This is an offishal fish pun.”

Selfish → Shellfish: “Stop being so shellfish!” and “Shellfishness is not going to help.”

Sell fish → Shellfish: “We need to shellfish all day if we’re going to make a profit.”

Fish Jokes

If you’re looking for extremely corny fish jokes, then you’ve come to the right place. Most of these jokes rely on some sort of pun for their punchline. Tap or hover on the back rectangle to show the answer.

Why is a fish so easy to weigh? – Because it has it’s own scales!

What do fish use to make telephone calls? – A shell-phone!

What’s the difference between a fish and a piano? – You can’t tuna fish!

What does the fish say when she hits into a concrete wall? – Oh dam!

What was the Tsar of Russia’s favourite fish? – Tsardines!

Why didn’t the crayfish share her toys? – She was too shellfish!

How do you tune a fish? – You can tuna fish with it’s scales.

What do you get if you cross an abbot with a trout? – A monkfish!

What fish goes up the river at 100mph? – A motor pike!

Why was the bluefish blue? – Because the blowfish wouldn’t.

What did the fish say when her friends kept making annoying puns? – I’m outta this plaice!

Why do some fish live at the bottom of the ocean? – Because they dropped out of school.

What is the best way to communicate with a fish? – Drop it a line!

What has big sharp teeth, a tail, scales, and a trunk? – A pike going on holiday.

What did the fish say to his boyfriend? – Your plaice or mine?

Why are fish so smart? – Because they live in schools!

Where do fish go to borrow money? – To the prawn broker, or sometimes a load shark

Why is a fishmonger never generous? – Because his business makes him sell-fish.

What’s the worlds laziest fish? – The kipper!

Which fish can perform operations? – A sturgeon!

What does a fish wrap round its shoulders to keep warm? – A shoal!

Where do baby fish go every morning? – Plaiceschool

Why did the fish blush? – Because the see-weed!

Fish Pun Images

We’ve scoured the internet and managed to gather together all the visual fish puns (memes, comics, etc.) that we could. If you’ve made or found any more, please share a link to it in the comments!

Did this Punpedia article help you?

All stocked up on fish puns? Or maybe you’re looking for something more specific that wasn’t in this entry? More fish jokes? More visual puns? A bigger list of fish puns that you can use in conversation? Whatever the case, please let us know in the comments! One of our curators or a member of the Punpedia community will do their best to help you out. And as always, if you have any fish puns that we don’t, please share them with us in the comments! Thanks for visiting Punpedia 🙂